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CHRISTCHURCH MAIL, FEBRUARY 12, 2015 17 By LYNDA HALLINAN WHAT TO DO WHEN BROWN ROT STRIKES YOUR SUMMER FRUIT When the spores of brown rot (Monilinia fructicola) gang up on ripening peaches and nectarines, there’s nothing you can do to stop them. This fungal disease strikes just as the flesh softens and turns juicy, and it spreads rapidly. I’ve seen it rip through a fully laden tree in less than 24 hours, leaving a trail of rotten fruit in its wake. As soon as you see the symptoms – patches of brown rot, with powdery spores over the surface – the only thing you can do to salvage your crop is to pick all the fruit, cut out the bad bits, and cook or freeze the rest of the chopped flesh. This week, my Goldmine nectarines fell victim – so I’ve been boiling up vast cauldrons of fruit for jams and chutney-making. To prevent brown rot recurring next year, it’s essential to pick up all the bad fruit and remove any mummified fruit left on the tree. In winter, apply a clean-up spray of copper to kill the spores, and apply another copper spray just before bud burst. You can also spray dwarf stonefruit trees with a fungicide such as Bravo throughout the season, though that’s not very practical with large trees. When pruning, try to open the trees up, to improve air flow. STOCK UP ON SPARE SWAN PLANTS NOW Are monarch butterfly caterpillars happily munching you out of house and home? Don’t wait until the shortage of swan plant foliage gets critical. Buy some spare plants now and Sweet protection: Surrounding your swan plants with sweet peas hides the nibbled stems and helps keep the monarch caterpillars safe from predators. pot them up in a ‘‘quarantine’’ bed. When you buy new swan plants from garden centres, take them home and hose them off to remove any insecticides that may have been sprayed on the plants in the nursery. Then, cover the plants with fine mesh netting to prevent any monarchs laying new eggs on them. Keep these plants well watered and feed them with liquid fertiliser for lush growth. This will give you a back-up food supply to finish fattening those mature caterpillars later in the season, when they’ve decimated your existing plants. I also ringfence my swan plants with sweet peas – pictured above – to hide the Pictures: SALLY TAGG chewed stalks and to distract wasps from attacking the caterpillars hidden away inside the sweet peas. This column is adapted from the weekly E-ZINE Get Growing from New Zealand Gardener Magazine. For a free sample visit getgrowing.co.nz or to subscribe visit mags4gifts.co.nz or call 0800 mags4gifts. Cut and run: When brown rot strikes, pick all your fruit pronto and get it into the preserving pan. Fly the flag for your team for only $2.50! Pick up your official ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 Flag (normally $5.99) when you buy the The Press, Sunday Star-Times or Sunday News from BP Connect. Participating stores only while stocks last. Promotion runs from 26 January – 22 February 2015. Flag RRP $5.99 without purchase of newspaper.